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Monday, August 13, 2012

Thiel: COG7 Celebration of 150 Years of Bible Advocate To Be Short Lived

The Church of God Seventh Day begins the next year celebrating the 150th anniversary of one of Americas oldest religious publications.

August 12, 1863, was the dateline printed on the very first issue of The Hope of Israel, a publication now named the Bible Advocate. We’re planning to memorialize BA’s history as one of the oldest religious publications in America and to improve its service in the future.
Join us, please, as we celebrate our one hundred fiftieth year of publication in this and the next six issues. Bible Advocate Online

That's a pretty good accomplishment for a Church of God that has been in existence
longer than HWA's version, published a magazine longer than any other COG and
has more members. Of course this does not go over too well with Bob
Thiel, the official spokesman for the Living Church of God.

Bob says, in his official capacity as LCG spokesman, that the COG7 has had
no real converted members over the decades, though there might have been an incredibly
small percentage orginally. Real converted Christians
never emerged on the scene till Herb started his empire after Loma had that
nightmare.

Back in 1863, not only was the publication not called the Bible Advocate, and Church of God (Seventh Day) was actually called Church of God (Adventist).
Based upon my research into its early history, while it may have some
actual COG members back in 1863, they seemed to be the minority until
around the early 20th century.

COG7 apparently is looked upon by Bob as uneducated, theologically bankrupt
fools. Bob has even lectured the COG7 leadership on what they are supposed
to believe. Bob and LCG know more about the Bible than the COG7 does.

They ignored Bob and continue on in their own beliefs. Bob gets the
last word in though. Bob wants them to know that the tribulation will
soon be upon them and the COG7 will no longer be publishing or have reason to celebrate.

While, as a rule, CG7 has lost certain knowledge of some doctrines (cf. Revelation 3:1-6), especially prophecy (and this loss here seems to have accelerated over the past five or so years), the current issue of the Bible Advocate
does have an article by Arlo Gieselman consistent with the COG view
that God will give everyone an opportunity for salvation, either now or
at the second resurrection. And while I have personally spoken to one
of its former presidents (Calvin Burrell) about why he should teach this
doctrine, and he is the editor of the Bible Advocate, he did have the following disclaimer after the pro-second resurrection opportunity doctrine article:

Arlo Gieselman attends the Church of God Kansas City in
Independence, MO, and conducts a ministry to truckers at nearby truck
stops. Though Arlo is a good friend of the editor and of CoG7, not every
idea in his Viewpoint necessarily represents positions adopted by the
Church.

So, while I am glad that more in CG7 seem to understand at least
parts of this doctrine, it is still not one that CG7 is fully
comfortable about embracing. Anyway, if my understanding of end time
Bible prophecy is close to correct, CG7 will not have too many more
years to put out its publications.

Thiel does not have much to celebrate considering that LCG is just another of the 700 some harlot daughters of Armstrongism, fractured and impotent, that the world knows nothing about. In the 70 some short years of Armstrongism, hundreds of splinter cults have formed with an equal number of men declaring themselves to be the true leader. Armstrongism is shrinking while the COG7 gains new members.

7 comments:

Lake of Fire Church of God
said...

Of course, Bob Thiel ignores the obvious – The Church of God, Seventh Day (COG7D) is not the “dead” Sardis Church HWA brainwashed us into believing. They are a very live church, more so than WCG and its 700+ splinters.

Bob Thiel also ignores these facts: 1) as HWA was building his religious empire in the 1950s, he allowed his Radio Church of God members to attend COG7D Sabbath Services in metropolitan areas where there was no Radio Church of God congregations established; 2) despite years of teaching that WCG was exclusively “God’s one and only true church”, HWA himself admitted that COG7D was “God’s Church” too; and 3) many ex-WCG members fled back to the parent COG7D church after little Joey Tkach hijacked WCG and liquidated the Church assets so he could be a multi millionaire. One of the best ex-WCG ministers (next to Dennis Diehl of course, LOL), the late Richard Wiedenheft, landed in the COG7D long before multi millionaire little Joey Tkach inherited the WCG back when the Church was embroiled in financial and sex scandal.

Let’s give the Church of God, Seventh Day credit where credit is due. It is quite an accomplishment in this day and age to have a publication with the 150 year longevity of the Bible Advocate. Let’s also not forget like Mr. Thiel that the Bible Advocate opened its pages to the pen of HWA during the early years of his ministry.

Anyway, if my understanding of end time Bible prophecy is close to correct,

Well, no, dum dum, it is not even close, but we'll cover Ezekiel 37 and Daniel 8 pretty soon over at The Painful Truth to show how wrong you are. And there's that thing about British Israelism. And are you still pushing Karl Zu Guttenberg as the (fifth) Beast of Revelation? If at first you don't succeed, try, try again (Barak Obama seems to be the fave in some venues -- but hey, you are all fools if you think that the Beast of Revelation shall shortly appear). And then there is this whole thing about church eras. What a foolish notion. If history repeated itself, there would be the seven archetypes in every age of the church.

Of course, the above is a snarky comment on things that are not only not in evidence, but have no reality at all. Great Tribulation, Prophecy, Church Eras, Beasts. Bah! All fantasies in context.

So, Booby, do you want to explain why the CoG7 is BIGGER than all the Armstrong CoGs combined?

We will see shortly who has the lasting power.

And he has the history all wrong. I have a private copy of the Master's Thesis on the History of the Church of God Seventh Day and let me tell you, Booby Thiel doesn't know what he is talking about. The CoG7 did not develop the way he said it would. The author, who I know very well, had access to Baptist materials they simply would not share with any of the Armstrongists, which, when the Armstrongists talk of church history, are simply nothing more than stupid fools. The "True History" nonsense was copied from Dugger and Dodd, who plagiarized it directly from Ellen G. White, who either plagiarized it from someone else or -- in true false prophetess fashion -- just made it all up -- just like Herbert Armstrong made it all up.

And the good news is that I have finally mastered HTML5, JQuery and CSS3 for some major web Mojo. (So now you know what I did this past summer.)

The Plain Truth didn't last 150 years. You might say that it was short lived. And, except that Meredith was cursed by Weinland, and the curse has extended Meredith's life (apparently) -- reverse curse (sort of like a reverse mortgage) where curses promising certain death, become blessings (although Spanky's health doesn't seem to be much a blessing these days), Meredith would be dead by now and the Living Church of God would fade, just like all the ACoGs which fade when the cultmeister dies (except for United, which splits like an amoeba periodically).

Thiel looks right and sounds right -- but then he says something like this that is stupid and just plain nuts.

I keep waiting for him to improve, but haven't a clue as to what medications or regimens might improve his kook condition.

Thiel seems to feel as if he is judge and jury when it comes to these matters. I'm surprised that he didn't mention that COG7 has a "nonIsraelite" presiding. If Obama urinates the ACOGs off, imagine what Mr. Rose does!

Thiel refuses to remove the beam from his own eye -- a clear indictment, based on the philosophy he claims to uphold, of his own words.

What does this man do all day? "Obsession" would be a mild way of describing his chosen avocation. His blog/web posts are longer than many college essays. His website is cluttered with book-length justification pieces and rants against others who believe essentially the same things that he does.

He is as focused on sowing discord as he is on encouraging harmony. It's a technique he learned from his mentors, HWA and RCM. "The PROOF that we're chosen is that we're RIGHT." Until, of course, they're forced to admit that they were wrong about something. Round and round it goes.

Where is the humility? Where is the compassion? Where is the encouragement? Where is the longsuffering -- the patient, kind, benevolence that he would have us believe his "savior" preached.

It is nowhere to be found. He is obsessed with the defensive. His mission is to prove he is right. Note that I didn't just say "his church" or "the church." I said him.

In the context of the biblical text, that is an exercise in futility. Better to focus on what you don't or can't know, and remain humble in the face of it, than to boast of what you do know.

He doth protest too much, methinks. And it gives him away, every time.